Drunken Revelry
by FallenPrinceLoki
Summary: Salai learns why you don't challenge Ezio to a drinking contest...the hard way.


Something wasn't right. Leonardo pinched his eyes closed a little tighter in hopes of making his uneasy feeling go away. After a few minutes he was jolted awake by something below him, metal scraping across wood. Jumping out of bed he put on his breeches and grabbed the closest thing he had to a weapon, in this case happened to be a broom and crept downstairs. Careful not to make the wood stairs creak as he silently descended he snuck around the corner, broom raised high above his head only to be stopped by the sight in front of him.

Salai was wrestling a black clad assassin into the chair by the fireplace and by the looks of things, not doing so well. His assistant was a mess, his hair out of place, clothes torn and he looked very tired.

"Salai! What happened?" Leonardo whispered urgently, dropping the weapon and running to his assistant, his mind assuming Ezio had stopped something bad from happening to Salai.

"He's a terrible drunk and very heavy!" Salai replied, frustrated.

Confused the helped his assistant get the assassin in the chair.

"Terrible drunk? Salai…what have you done?" Leonardo questioned, flashing an annoyed glare to the young man sitting on his workshop table. Ezio was drenched and muddy; his robes disheveled and reeked of alcohol.

"Me? Nothing, he did the drinking himself." Salai replied, a sly grin on his face.

Leonardo saw no wounds, but upon pulling his hood back he saw the pink tint on his cheeks and the silly grin plastered on his face. He muttered something, but Leonardo didn't understand any of it.

"Salai, Ezio does not drink." Leonardo snapped, folding is arms across his chest.

"That is obvious, look at him! You have no idea how hard it was to get him here!"

"What did you do to get him that way in the first place?"

"Why is it always my fault?"

"Salai…"

"Bene, I simply found him sitting at the bar when I got there. He had a glass of wine that was clearly untouched, how can you waste something like that? I just told him that I find it hard that a man like him even knew what fun was, or even how to have fun."

"You didn't."

"He told me that he knew how to have to fun, but with his life it was something he couldn't afford to do. So, I simply challenged him to a contest."

"Oh Salai."

"Being a man, as you put it, who always keeps his word he could not back down from a challenge. I won obviously, but he is very difficult to handle when he has had too much to drink!"

"Tell me about it." Leonardo muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"It took Volpe, me and two strangers to help get him out of the tavern. Once we were out, that was a different story. Volpe laughed at me told me to have fun; it was not until then that I understood why. Ezio told me he could fly and ran off with a full bottle of vino in his hands. When I found him he was lying in a haystack with a goat! The farmer was very upset! Then trying to keep him upright was another story!"

"Surely."

"It was! He is very heavy and those damned blades he has all over, I cut my favorite doublet on one trying to keep him from falling down some stairs! He pulled the pants off a stranger, made out with a random lady who was with her husband, pinched the husbands' cheeks and told him he was cute and when he stumbled away from them when he dropped the bottle he had, when it broke he laughed so hard he fell over into a group of guards! Then he made fun of their boots!"

"Oh dio mio" Leonardo was now getting a headache.

"It took all I had to convince the guards and the men that he insulted that he was very ill and I was trying to get him home. Ezio stumbled away laughing about something that only gesu cristo knows about. By the time I finally got to him again he was passed out in a puddle!"

"That explains why he is muddy and wet."

"I practically had to drag him back here! Then before passing out again he tried to take his clothes off! I do not see how you do this!"

"I do not get him drunk." Leonardo deadpanned.

"Well, I won't do that again. I am exhausted and look at me, even drunk that man has way too much energy!" Salai answered with a loud sigh.

That was very true, only when Ezio was wounded or asleep would he stay still for very long. Salai looked as tired as he claimed; dealing with Ezio when he is drunk isn't for the faint of heart.

Leonardo chuckled when noticed that Ezio had slid almost out of the chair.

"He is sleeping in your bed tonight."

"Maestro! I need my beauty sleep! Why does he get my bed?" Salai whined.

"You got him this way; you can deal with him tonight. I will handle him when he wakes in the morning."

"But Leonardo!"

"Basta, help me get him to your room."

Salai pouted in the corner as he watched Leonardo strip the sleeping assassin down to nothing but his breeches and silk shirt. Sliding his legs under the covers, he pulled the heavy blanket over him, smirking when Ezio immediately flopped over on his belly, scrunching the pillow up under his head.

Salai got a pillow and blanket too, just for the floor. If he was going to loose his bed every time he got Ezio drunk, then he wasn't about to do it again. Bidding his assistant good night he smiled as he closed the door on Salai rambling on about losing his bed.

Ezio was going to have the diavolo of all headaches when he woke up.


End file.
